Coffee, tea and cocoa
by SparkleColaOrange
Summary: Dice looses the bet to the Devil, so he has to look after two cup-boys. The day is finally over, but babysitter's work absolutely isn't. - If you find any grammatical mistakes, I'll be glad to listen to you (English is not my natural)


The Devil was sitting in his cabinet laughing and smoking a cigarette. Everything was just perfect: usually slippery and sly Dice looked hilarious as a babysitter for two kids ready to break up their delicate elbows on every snag. The demon had a good laugh and planned to remind the cube about the most sugary moments of his work a whole next week.

But the Devil couldn't just let his subordinate go and read a pretty bedtime-story, finishing the day. Thinking a little bit, he took a glass of salty beer, then turned into the colubrine dragon and flew to the house in the suburbs of Inkwell Isle. As was expected, everyone was asleep. The Devil slipped in the nursery through the window and bent over dormant children. Thin fingers with claws grabbed mug's edges, and the dragon breathed a dark-sand steam over the kids. Their faces turned from appeased to suffering very quickly. The master of the Hell disappeared from the room in a second.

Meanwhile a huge fault in the ground turned up in boys' dreams instead of multicolored mountains of ice-cream. There was a fire, smoke and terrifying screams from it. The sky turned red, everything thundered and rattled around, but didn't let wake up. As finale, an enormous black something came out of the whole. It blazed its big yellow eyes, opened the sharp-toothed jaws and laughed, shaking the air. Its hairy claws were closer and closer, going to grab and filch down. Eventually there were heard screams not only of the sinners but of the boys.

Cuphead opened eyes sharply and raised himself from the bed. He breathed hard, mopping his brow. Small shoulders trembled because of the night draught, so the cup-boy jumped-off quickly, closed the window and came back to bed, trying not to think that that claw can get out from under the bed. The boy wrapped in blanket and screw up his eyes. Only after that he heard brother's hoarse breathe – Mugman wasn't asleep too.

"Mugs?" The cup-boy was speaking in whisper on the chance if he misheard.

"Yes?"

"Are you awake too?"

"Uhuh…I saw a nightmare. There…there was such a big scary black beast and…" Mugman's voice turned even hoarser and the boy sobbed in fright.

"You won't believe, but me too!"

The children took cover under the warm blanket and didn't feel so scared already.

The Devil clicked his tongue and knocked the glass with a claw. The night silence was interrupted with a thunder, and the heavy drops fell from the dark sky.

The frightened kids shrilled and cuddled together.

"Cups, I'm scared! M-maybe we should go to Mr. Dice?" Mugman asked teeth chattering. Cuphead nodded and, holding their hands, they ran out the room, screaming.

Almost falling from the stairs, boys came down in the living room and flopped into the sofa, where Dice was sleeping. He woke up in a flash because of two still screaming bodies, trying to crush down him.

"Hold your noise!" He almost roared so kids became quiet indeed. "What happened?"

"We saw a nightmare…" Mugman spoke softly, but determined – he wouldn't agree to come back to room.

"Both of you?" Dice asked skeptically raising his eyebrow.

"Yeah!" The elder twin sobbed almost resentfully. "A huge black monster with horns, claws and big teeth, there!"

"I see" Dice got who was behind it and rubbed the nose bridge resignedly.

Then thunder boomed again. The kids squeaked and stared at the cube with their big sad eyes.

"Come on. It's just a thunderstorm" Obviously, these words didn't have repercussion.  
"Okay then…Who wants to go and find something yummy at the kitchen?" This suggestion was accepted with much more enthusiasm and smiling cups galloped away from the lounge.

Dice walked the last one, still trying to wake up. He used to drink coffee, but there was no any in the house. On the other hand there were many-many sorts of tea even from the good old days. Just the sight of it made feel giddy. A little bright box, set alone in the corner attracted Dice. He gave it a look-over and called the boys, rustling with the pack at his hand.

"Boys, who wants a cocoa?"  
"I do!"  
"I do!"

Dice set the little ones on the stand and poured the cocoa solids and milk in their capacities by one. He didn't know the anatomy of cups very well, but recognized that there was nothing weird about it for them. When he set them carefully on the floor and gave out the straws, Dice turned back to choosing a drink, but decided not to bother himself and poured his own glass with cocoa too.

The rain knocked the glass softly, and it was safe to turn on TV. The blue screen showed a comedy, which's low sounds were interrupted with squelch of straws from time to time. The warm milk did it's work, so very soon two boys aside of the cube were sleeping peacefully. Dice was about to too, he could hardly keep his eyes open, but he couldn't find the console to turn off the pale blinding screen. Suddenly it did by itself. And if Dice did not fall asleep right away, he would notice that the darkness in that corner moved pretty suspiciously. But they will talk about it tomorrow when Dice comes to work relaxed and having saccharine, but so pleasurable for a mortal memories.


End file.
